


I'm not fine (but I will be)

by superkarasdanvers



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Best Friends, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Lena Luthor Knows Kara Danvers Is Supergirl, Sad Kara Danvers, Supportive Lena Luthor, if i keep writing this thats where it will end up, we will see
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-17 20:56:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18106316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superkarasdanvers/pseuds/superkarasdanvers
Summary: there is something off about Kara and it takes two very important people to notice it, but only one will be able to help fix itorthe one where kara feels lost, like she is just going through the motions everyday. Alex seems to think she's doing just fine but Lena couldn't disagree more and takes it as her best friend duty to fix it.





	I'm not fine (but I will be)

Something is off.

You wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking at her, Kara Danvers is wearing the same dopey smile she always does. Supergirl is looking as proud as ever after yet another save.

But, if you looked close enough you would be able to see that it’s all fake.

Kara wakes up every morning at the same time. She goes to the same job as a reporter for CatCo Worldwide Media. It is the job she hadn’t realized she was dreaming of until it was staring her in the face and once she started everything made sense. This is exactly where she wants to be and exactly what she wants to be doing. But, something doesn’t feel right.

After work, if there isn’t a crisis during the day, she reports to the DEO to do her daily sweep of the city. If there is crime to be stopped, she does so without a second thought. It is her duty to protect and she will be damned if she lets a little mood swing get in her way.

Unless there is any other reason for her to stay at the DEO, she goes home every night and curls up on the couch to watch TV alone until she falls asleep. It has been that way ever since Mon-El left. She was hurt when it first happened. Someone was with her nearly every night just because she hated being alone, but soon enough the attention faded. Kara didn’t really mind, she has since moved on and while he will remain in her heart, she is not the same woman she was. She doesn’t need someone to make her happy.

At least, she thought she didn’t.

Overall, her life is pretty great. On top of the job she loves and the duty she takes pride in, she has a loving sister and a caring best friend. Alex and Lena are always asking her to go to lunch or out to the bar. Most nights she says yes. There isn’t much else in the world that brings her more happiness than going to the bar with her sister after a long day. Sitting in a booth and talking about everything and nothing at the same time has become one of her favorite pastimes. It is only bested by surprise lunch dates with her best friend.

If anyone in Kara’s life was going to notice the slight difference in her demeanor, it would be one of them.

It ended up being both.

Alex and Lena have developed a bit of an interesting friendship over that past few years. At first Alex was not a fan at all. She had hopped on the “Luthor’s are bad” train just a bit too quickly and it took a lot of convincing from Kara (and good deeds from Lena) to make her see otherwise. 

Alex was the first to know that Lena was aware of the big secret. She has always been very in tune with other people, with the exception of Kara. No matter how hard she tried to read her sister, it always seemed that she was off in a completely different direction. But, with Lena she could see it right away. The first time she saw Kara and Lena interact, she knew Lena was hooked. The lingering looks and the scramble to continue conversation were quite obvious to her, the fact that they were lost on Kara seemed insane. 

Alex is pretty sure Lena’s feelings for her baby sister were part of the reason she disliked her so much in the beginning, on top of the family name that is.

She made the connection that Lena knew when she saw the same lingering looks at Supergirl. It was subtle at first, she even tried to hide it by picking fights with her. It was almost like Lena recognized her feelings and tried to push them away. The suit, that symbol, it seemed to give Lena to push she needed to be at odds when Kara was Supergirl. But, when she was just Kara Danvers she couldn’t hide the way she felt. At least not to Alex.

So, Alex was cautious, as she always was when it came to Kara. Her duty was to protect her sister at all costs. That included both physical and emotional trauma. Lena Luthor was emotional trauma waiting to happen and Alex was not going to stand by and watch her sister get hurt.

But then Lena did something. She brought in a suit that saved Kara’s life. She explained to Alex that she really does care about Supergirl. The look in her eyes when she said it: the worry, the vulnerability and the sheer _love_ is what made Alex believe.

From then on the pair worked together more. Eventually, with the help of Alex, Kara told Lena the secret. Lena explained that she knew the whole time but wanted to give Kara space. Kara laughed but ultimately she knew how smart Lena was. Even without the feelings the Luthor clearly had for the Super, she would have figured it out eventually.

Lena became the first person the sisters called when they were in trouble. Brainy is amazing and his skills are clearly superior to any human, but sometimes having Lena in the same lab as him would get the ball rolling just a bit faster. After a few civilian rescues with her help and her Kryptonian life-saving device, she was brought on to the DEO as a sort of emergency contact.

When Kara starting acting slightly off, the pair noticed practically immediately. Lena ended up being the one to bring it up, though.

“Hey, have you noticed something off with Kara lately?” she asked as an offhand comment one day when Alex came into the lab for a status report.

Alex nodded, seemingly not surprised at the topic. “Yeah, she’s kind of become a hermit.” she scrunched her nose as she took a look into the microscope.

Lena picked up a vile, moving it between her fingers if only to have something to do with her hands. “Doesn’t seem like her.” Lena answered, trying to keep the conversation light considering Alex didn’t seem to be worried. “Has she done this before?”

Alexed pulled back from the microscope and put her hands on her hips as she always does when in uniform, “I’m not even sure what exactly _this_ is.”

Lena nodded, “But you agree that something is definitely off.” she pushed, raising her eyebrows just slightly.

“Yeah, I do agree. She hasn’t been wanting to come out as much lately, or at all really.” Alex said the last part slowly as if realizing that they haven’t had a sister night in over two weeks. Alex has been so busy trying to distract herself with new women every night. She was finally over Maggie, or at least as over as she can get, and wanted to hop back on the saddle as quickly as she could.

“We haven’t had lunch together in a month.” Lena deadpanned, crossing her arms. As her fingers fell slowly on the crease of her arm, as they always did, she raised an almost challenging brow at Alex.

“Okay, yeah. I’ll see what I can do.”

\-----

So, Alex was the first to try. She _had_ noticed that Kara started declining post-work meetups more and more often until eventually she just wasn’t going at all. She was worried but ultimately decided that maybe her sister just didn’t want to go out. After all, a day in the life of Supergirl can be enough for one person and she has the responsibilities of Kara Danvers on top of that. But since Lena seemed to be a bit more worked up about it, Alex tried a new approach. She began stopping by Kara’s house at the very least once a week with dinner to catch up.

Kara seemed fine. She smiled and talked about her day. She asked Alex how she was doing and they reminisced on their week just as they would have at the bar in the booth. Nothing else seemed different to Alex. She just assumed that Kara was becoming more of a home body than a social butterfly. People change, there’s nothing wrong with that. Right?

Lena didn’t agree.

“You’re just going to accept it?” Lena accused, she was admittedly far too emotionally invested at this point and lashing out at Alex probably was not the best approach, but she was angry and disappointed.

“Lena, she’s fine.” Alex responded for the third time, her jaw clenched to bite her tongue.

“That’s the problem.” Lena glared at Alex, “Being _fine_ is not something Kara does. Kara is an emotional person. She’s either happy, angry, sad or scared.” she counted the emotions on her fingers then held them up to show Alex to prove her point. “Did you hear _fine_ listed as one of those? No, because Kara Danvers doesn’t do _fine_.” the word delivered with a bit more of a bite every time Lena repeated it.

Alex rolled her eyes at the woman standing in her kitchen. Lena had sent Alex a text about two weeks after their initial conversation about their favorite girl. Alex mentioned that she set up a few dinner nights and Kara seemed to be fine. As soon as Lena read the word, red flags went off. She had made her way Alex’s house in a mere ten minutes to discuss just why she thought Alex’s assessment was a load of shit.

Kara has always been so expressive with her emotions, nearly exhaustingly so. When she’s happy she is _excited or passionate_. She will talk about whatever it is that has her so amped up for hours on end without faltering. When she’s angry, it’s _furious or livid_. She will have all of this pent up anger about whatever topic and will always vent to either Alex or Lena. One of them gets to hear it all so the world can still see Kara Danvers and Supergirl as positive people. When she’s sad it’s dramatically so. But sad is typically an emotion that gets triggered quickly in the woman. It could be something as simple as hearing a puppy whine because it wants a treat or something as complex as a civilian dying because Supergirl just couldn’t save everyone. 

Scared is an emotion Kara doesn’t show often. Lena has only seen it once and it was when she woke up inside her suit after nearly dying from the polluted air. Alex was the one standing right beside the hero, but Lena was there. She was sat in a chair in the back part of the room. She had refused to leave Kara’s side until she woke up. She had to see with her own eyes that her best friend, the woman she loved and cared for most in this world, was going to be okay.

 _Fine_ just doesn’t cut it.

When it became clear that Lena wasn’t going to get anywhere with Alex, she decided to just take the leap. She had her driver take her straight from Alex’s house to Kara’s. It was way too late to be considered normal visiting hours, but she didn’t care. Kara’s well being was way too important to put off until a more “acceptable” time.

That’s how she found herself knocking on Kara’s door at 11:23 P.M.

When Kara answered the door, she was much more put together than Lena had been anticipating. Usually, when someone knocks on the door in the middle of the night, they expect one of two things. One, they don’t get an answer at all. Or two, the person answering the door looks tired and as if they had just rolled out of bed, which to be fair they probably have.

But there Kara was, standing in front of Lena with a curious smile on her face and bunny slippers on her feet. “Lena, hi.” she said softly.

Lena felt all of the blood rush to her cheeks. Suddenly she realized that throughout all of their years of friendship Lena had never seen Kara this late at night and certainly not in such casual wear. It only served to make her love the woman more. She realized that she was taking a touch too long to respond and cleared her throat in attempt to mask it, “Hey, Kara.”

Kara stepped aside, leaving enough room for Lena to pass if she wanted as she leaned her head against the door. She looked tired and the smile she was still sporting didn’t quite reach her eyes. “What are you doing here, are you okay?” she questioned.

Lena nodded immediately, not wanting to scare her best friend. “No, I mean yeah. No need to worry, I’m perfectly fine.” she clarified and Kara seemed to soften a bit. “I was just stopping by to see how you were doing.”

Kara’s smile seemed to grown a bit more at the comment, seeming more genuine. “You drove to my house at 11:30 to see how I’m doing?” she quirked a brow.

Lena laughed and nodded, “Yeah, I guess I did. Do you mind if I come in?”

Kara seemed all too eager to have the guest over as she stepped even farther out of Lena’s way and opened the door more fully. “Absolutely, come in.”

Lena deposited her purse and coat on the kitchen counter as Kara led her to the couch in the living room and the pair sat together in silence. The only noise came from the TV which was playing an old rerun of Friends on a volume so low that Lena couldn’t quite decipher what they were saying. But, Kara’s giggles here and there showed that the TV was accustomed to Kryptonian ears.

She didn’t say anything, at least not about the TV, for close to fifteen minutes. They just sat in silence, enjoying the presence. When the silence was finally broken, it was Kara doing the talking, “I don’t think I’m okay.”

It was so soft that Lena almost didn’t register that someone was speaking. Plus, Kara never took her eyes off of the TV.

“In what way?” Lena questioned, not wanting to put words into her mouth.

“I’m not sure.” Kara answered immediately, her voice was slightly louder this time but still very quiet. It was like she was sharing a secret and she wouldn’t look at Lena who was sitting on the chair behind her. Lena decided to keep quiet, to let Kara speak on what she wanted when she wanted. “It kind of feels like I’m just going through the motions.” she finally continued, adjusting her position on the sofa so she was laying on her back and staring at the ceiling.

“Like work and Supergirl.” Lena filled in, trying to get clarification.

“And with Alex.” she admitted, going quieter once again. “When we hang out, it’s pretty organic stuff.”

Lena nodded, in some way she already knew that but convincing Alex was going to be a battle in itself. “Are you sad?” Lena questioned, pushing back just slightly to see just how far Kara would open up about this.

“No.” she answered simply.

“Mad?” Lena tried again.

“No.” Kara answered once again, letting out a small sigh. “I just feel like nothing.” she explained.

Lena wasn’t sure how to take that answer. She has dealt with mad. She knows how to handle an outburst. She has dealt with sad. She knows the best way to comfort people until they feel better. But she has never worked with the feeling of nothing.

“How can I help?” Lena asked, realizing that if she didn’t know what to do, maybe Kara would.

“Stay the night?” Kara asked almost immediately before flipping onto her stomach quickly and making eye contact, “I mean only if you want to.”

Lena let a small smile pull at her face with the glimpse of her best friend for the moment. “Of course, I would love to.” Lena nodded, “but I may need to borrow some clothes to sleep in.” she raised a brow teasingly and Kara’s smile seemed to grow.

She bounded out of the room and was back in seconds with long grey sweatpants that will surely need to be rolled at _least_ three times and an oversized black tee. She held them up with an adorable smile and Lena took them gratefully.

The interaction was over almost as quickly as it began and as the pair settled on the couch to choose a movie once Lena was changed, Kara fell asleep almost instantaneously curled up into a ball at the end of the couch with a hand resting against Lena’s arm.

She didn’t have her Kara back but it was a small step toward what seemed to be a much larger issue.

**Author's Note:**

> i just felt like i needed to write this
> 
> come yell at me if you want over on tumblr
> 
> www.superkarasdanvers.tumblr.com


End file.
